Resonant cavities form an essential part of many microwave components including filters, waveguides, couplers and power combiners. A typical dielectric resonator for a microwave integrated circuit comprises a metallic box enclosing a disk of dielectric material deposited on a substrate& with a much smaller dielectric constant. Dielectric materials are favored for most microwave applications because the high-dielectric constants available through some materials make compact circuit components possible.
These compact micowave components, however, are realized at the cost of power dissapation. Practical microwave integrated circuits are lossy compared to metallic resonant cavities, suffering power losses through the following two principle mechanisms. Since practical dielectrics are far from lossless, power is dissipated through the induced polarization of the dielectric material in a time-harmonic electric field. Also, practical dielectrics do not completely confine electromagnetic radiation, so a conductive metallic shielding surrounds the resonator to reduce radiation losses. The shield has a non-zero resistivity which results in ohmic power dissipation.